The Cook Children’s Health Care System has lost its chief investment officer Patrick O’Connor and deputy CIO Apurva Mehta, according to a source with knowledge of the exits.
A search to replace O’Connor has begun, the source told II Wednesday.
Cook Children’s manages about $2 billion in foundation assets for the regional health care network headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. A spokesperson declined to comment on the departures via email Thursday, noting that the chief financial officer was traveling “and not prepared to talk about this at the moment.”
But the LinkedIn profiles of both O’Connor and Mehta showed that they departed this month and have joined Mumbai-based asset manager Bay Capital. The firm runs long-only public equities and private equity strategies, with offices in Mumbai, London, Singapore, and Mauritius, according to Bay Capital’s website. But O’Connor and Mehta appear to be staying in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in their new roles as managing partners.
In 2009, Cook Children’s hired O’Connor — then CIO of the University of Arizona — to set up an investment office and portfolio from scratch. Mehta joined two years later, and rose to the position of deputy CIO during his seven-year tenure.
[II Deep Dive: 2013 Hedge Fund Rising Stars — Apurva Mehta, Cook Children’s]
Mehta earned $380,903 in 2015 as managing director for investments, including a salary of $276,450 and nearly $60,000 bonus, the foundation’s IRS filings showed.
CIO O’Connor made $835,634 that year, with a base salary of $502,098, bonus of nearly $200,000, and about $137,000 in benefits and “other reportable compensation.”
Investment director Eli Bloshtein has taken over as interim CIO while the nonprofit searches for a permanent successor, according to Bloshtein’s LinkedIn profile. He joined the foundation in 2012 as an analyst.
Cook Children’s has retained New York-based executive recruiting firm David Barrett Partners to assist with the search.
